


Gladly Take Even

by forgetmequite



Series: A Noble Man's Marriage [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Regency, M/M, POV Alec Lightwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 00:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16754095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetmequite/pseuds/forgetmequite
Summary: To save his suddenly impoverished family, Alec Lightwood intends to marry the notorious Magnus Bane. He has no idea what to expect, but the conversation he has with Magnus right before the wedding was not it.





	Gladly Take Even

**Author's Note:**

> This is a post-NaNo mess I wrote in one day because regency!Malec as a concept would not leave me alone.
> 
> ("Can you explain your world-building? How is it regency exactly?"  
> "IDK shhh, imagine old time aesthetics, and also I mention words like banns and marriage contract, so that counts, right?")
> 
> I'm optimistically making it into a series because it makes me feel better about posting something that's so obviously just a key snapshot from a much longer story. I hope it also makes sense on its own. There will hopefully be more of it, but I can't actually make promises.

Alexander, Lord Lightwood, stared out the window. His white suit positively sparkled in the mid-morning sun, and the golden accents on it made him look a little bit like the sun himself. Or so his sister, who had planned the outfit, had told him.

Inside, Alec felt more like a rain cloud. A rain cloud that wasn’t quite sure if it was going to rain down right now, but a rain cloud nonetheless.

He’d never attached much thought to his wedding day, but that was largely because he had always been resigned to the fact that a wedding was an inevitability. He’d thought that that day would matter, and the union it would create could easily be made into a practical arrangement with a few unpleasant elements, here and there. Alec had always been good at hiding parts of himself and making what he showed look reliable but unapproachable. He might have been sorry for the woman whose hopes of happiness he thus dashed, but in some matters it was frighteningly easy to knock his conscience over the head with his sense of duty.

This day, though, this _wedding_ , was not what he’d been resigning himself to all his life. And Mr Magnus Bane, the uncrowned king of the Downworld and a noble man without a title (so said the less biased informants Alec had enlisted into his service, that was, Izzy), certainly did not fit the bill of the spouse Alec had been preparing to disappoint.

In all the uncertainty that was swirling inside his head, one thing could not be gainsaid: Alec had brought all of it on himself. True, he could not have predicted how poorly his father would handle the family affairs, only letting anyone else in the know when it was far too late to salvage the Lightwood name with mere prudence and discreetly applied common sense. But even though Alec rarely changed course after he’d decided on a plan of action, even he could not deny that this course, the one that would lead him to walk out from this room to face a silent brother and a warlock representative in order to forever join his faith to a man he did not know much at all, had been his own choice.

He had been the one to march into Magnus Bane’s home, ask for an audience and then wait for three hours until Magnus would agree to see him. He had been the one to make the proposition: Alec would hand over certain family heirlooms that had been robbed from Magnus centuries ago, as well as allow Magnus certain influence in regards to Alec’s votes in the Lords’ Council, and in return, Magnus would save the Lightwoods from a very public financial humiliation.

The wedding had, at that point, been an afterthought, the most discreet way to exchange property. True, Alec had most embarrassingly stuttered when he finally came face to face with the god-like figure of Magnus Bane, but that hadn’t been the point. He’d only realised that a wedding was inevitably followed by a marriage when Magnus had summoned him to Magnus’s office yet again to say he accepted the proposition.

The banns had been posted, the marriage contract was signed and the date had come. And now, mere half an hour separated Alec from saving his family and marrying Mr Magnus Bane, the most notorious warlock alive. The wedding wouldn’t make Alec a focus of Shadowworld gossip; the engagement had already done that.

There was a knock on the door. Alec didn’t even turn away from the window.

“It’s open, Izzy.”

“Not the beautiful Isabelle, I’m afraid.”

Alec spun around. On the doorway, as if waiting if the invitation extended to him, too, stood Magnus in a resplendent dark red suit.

The breathlessness in Alec’s voice was not due to surprise. “Hi.”

“Hello, Alexander,” Magnus said and seemed to decide that the invitation to enter extended to him as well. “Your suit becomes you.”

Alec glanced down at himself. “Um, thanks. You- you too.”

Magnus joined him by the window. “The weather does not warrant such resigned demeanour.”

Alec frowned. He was feeling many things, but resigned certainly was not one of them. He looked at Magnus and frowned further. From the other end of the room, Magnus had looked unapproachable and perfect, as always. Up close, though, when you focused on details, it was almost like looking through a glamour. Magnus’s outfit was impeccable, and yet he kept picking at imaginary loose threads on his sleeve. His make-up was flawless as usual, and yet Alec could tell that it had been skilfully applied to hide dark circles under Magnus’s eyes. The whole look obviously aimed to convey sharpness, from the spikes in Magnus’s hair to the metal details in his suit and to the rings that you could have killed a man with, and yet Alec didn’t need to search Magnus’s face for long to find a wounded softness, like a sweet hedgehog looking out from a ball of spikes.

“Are you okay? You look-“

“Spare my vanity and do not finish that sentence,” Magnus said, and despite the wounded look, his words came out harsh. “I merely came to offer to release you from the engagement.”

Alec blinked. He’d heard a lot of rude words and venomous insinuations ever since they’d made their engagement public, but nothing had blindsided him quite like this.

If he was completely honest, nothing had hurt him quite like this, either.

“Do you not want to?” he asked, mostly to fill the silence. “To get married, I mean.”

Magnus sighed. Alec had no idea how he’d missed how incredibly _tired_ he looked.

“Contrary to what you might have heard, shadowhunter,” Magnus said stiffly, but this time Alec got the feeling that the words hurt more to say than they hurt to hear, “I am not a man to break my promises without cause. But I am also not a man who wishes for a spouse who is marrying martyrdom instead of me.”

Alec stayed silent to prompt him to continue, but it seemed Magnus thought he’d been clear.

“I don’t understand,” Alec finally said.

Magnus glanced at him, as if it hurt. “This might come as a surprise to you, but I’d hope whoever I marry would enjoy my company, not see me as a penance for their sins. Or their family’s sins, for that matter.”

It did come as a surprise. From the moment they met, it had been clear to Alec that he’d gladly take even the smallest scraps Magnus would offer him when it came to making their marriage an actual, fully realised union. But it had never even crossed his mind that Magnus might want anything of the like from Alec. Alec, who cared too much about duty and had never met a party he could really enjoy, who was stuffy and boring and an absolute _nobody_ compared to Magnus Bane.

Magnus sighed, obviously taking Alec’s silence the wrong way.

“We can still complete the transaction you wished for,” he said, not meeting Alec’s eye. “Of course, people will talk, but that couldn’t be hel-“

“Magnus,” Alec interrupted him, reaching out to grasp at Magnus’s sleeve before even realised what he was doing, “I don’t want you to release me from the engagement.”

Magnus startled, and looked at Alec, eyes wide as if Alec had completely blindsided him. When he spoke, his voice was so small that Alec wouldn’t have thought the great Magnus Bane capable of it had he not heard it himself.

“What... what do you want, then?”

It was folly, it was madness, it was completely inappropriate. Alec didn’t care. He surged forwards, grabbed Magnus by the lapels and kissed him.

He’d never kissed anyone before, and for a few fleeting seconds, Alec was afraid it showed. But then Magnus’s hands grasped his shoulders and Magnus kissed him back, and Alec’s brain ceased to process any information that wasn’t about how good it felt.

Alec didn’t know how long they kissed. Even as he pulled away to check the clock, Magnus’s lips chased after him, and if Magnus hadn’t pulled back so soon, Alec would have taken the hint.

He checked the clock; there was still fifteen minutes left. The kiss that had felt like sweet eternity couldn’t have lasted more than some minutes.

Alec glanced at Magnus, abashed at his behaviour. The knot in his stomach eased as suddenly as it had appeared at the sight of Magnus’s soft smile and the genuine warmth that had replaced the wounded look in his eyes.

“You continue to surprise me, Alexander.”

Alec shuffled his feet. His full name had never sounded as good as it did from Magnus’s lips, and he didn’t want to lose that, but-

“You can, um, call me Alec. That’s what my family does.”

Magnus smiled. “And miss your delightful blush? I don’t think so, Alexander.”

Alec bit his lip, certain he was offering just the very blush Magnus apparently had hoped for.

“We should go, maybe,” he said. “I mean, if you- Will you marry me?”

He’d just meant it as a simple confirmation, but Magnus’s eyes lit up, and that was so much better.

“Of course,” Magnus said, taking Alec’s hand, and together they walked downstairs to begin their wedding ceremony.


End file.
